User blog:NibiruMul/Forgotten fairy tale collection reviews, part 3
Today I'm going to be reviewing another forgotten fairy tale collection. This one is titled The Fairy Ring and it's by Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith. It was published in 1906. Surprisingly, a lot of stories that appear in most Victorian collections are absent from this book. There's no Cinderella, no Puss in Boots, no Dick Whittington, no Hop-o'-My-Thumb, and so on. (Thankfully, there was no Babes in the Wood!) On the other hand, there's a lot of Scandinavian stories in the first section of the book. I'll go over a few of them. Mother Roundabout's Daughter is one such story. It's a story of a woman with a foolish son who loves singing and dancing. The son wants to woo Mother Roundabout's daughter, whose home is infested with rats. The rats give him cloth, which he brings home to his mother. Eventually, he wins over a princess. This story was kind of annoying, especially the singing. Definitely not something I'll be considering an OC for. The Ram and the Pig Who Went Into the Woods to Live by Themselves is another story. It's about a ram who escapes into the woods to avoid being eaten. He meets some other animals They build a house in the woods. But when they discover that two wolves live nearby and that the wolves are asking for a pipe, the animals attack them. I kinda felt bad for the wolves in the story since they were trying to be friendly with their neighbors. The ram and his friends, on the other hand, were extremely unlikable. It sounds kinda weird that a fairy tale wolf would end up being more sympathetic than other, more "gentle" animals such as pigs or hares. This is a definite favorite of mine as far as this collection goes, and seeing an OC for it would be cool. The Clever Prince is another good one. It's about a prince who wants a princess just as beautiful and clever as himself. He searches among many maidens, but fails to find one to satisfy him. One day, he meets a peasant couple with a beautiful daughter. At first he feels hesitant to marry her since she is a peasant, but the girl proves to be clever by weaving the bed curtains he asked for her. He marries her, and all is well. Even though I normally prefer the French literary fairy tales, one good thing about oral fairy tales like this one are that commoners get to marry royalty on a regular basis. (You still get many oral fairy tales where princes marry princesses, but they co-exist with stories like this one.) Next is the English section. It has no interesting stories, though one of them, Master Tobacco, has a rather...interesting picture. (It's not even English. According to Wikipedia, it's actually Norwegian.) The little boy in the picture looks like he's wearing a diaper. I know that's not what he's wearing, but it just looks like it...definitely one of the worse fairy tale illustrations I've seen. And now to the French section. Surprisingly, it's lacking in Perrault stories - the only Perrault story is present is Riquet with the Tuft. (I guess Kate and Nora weren't too crazy about Perrault.) On the other hand, they do have a few stories by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. They have a retelling of The Widow and her Two Daughters, as well as retellings of a few Madame d'Aulnoy stories. As the case with many Victorian collections, The Yellow Dwarf makes an appearance. I didn't like this retelling, since in this retelling, the story's tone doesn't resemble d'Aulnoy's. The style looks more like Beaumont's. (Beaumont was an excellent writer, without a doubt, but her style and d'Aulnoy's style are as different as night and day, If anything, I find her style of writing more like Perrault than Madame d'Aulnoy.) In d'Aulnoy's original, the wedding takes place in the palace courtyard, but in this retelling, it's at a church. Madame d'Aulnoy's stories contain virtually no references to Christianity; instead, the characters appear to worship the Roman or Greek gods. The original mentions Pallas (Athena/Minerva), Diana, and Tisiphone, all from Greco-Roman mythology. Then again, a lot of retellings of d'Aulnoy's stories omit mythological references. Toutebelle (here called All-Fair, a translation of her name common in Victorian retellings) is aged up - in the original she's fifteen; here she's eighteen. The ending is handled a little corny, rather than poetic like the original. (On a more positive note, I do like the illustration that comes with it.) Personally, I don't think The Yellow Dwarf is appropriate for children, and I'm baffled by the insane amount of Victorian collections that include it. Drakesbill and his Friends was even worse. I thought the main character was annoying, and the story was very corny in a Victorian kind of way. It also seemed rather childish, like a story that little kids might like but adults and teenagers would cringe at. It's also in Andrew Lang's Red Fairy Book, where it's known as Drakestail. The original author is Charles Marelles, who is one of the few collectors whose stories I generally dislike. Drak, the Fairy is another French story here. It's about an arrogant young French merchant named Michael, who falls in love with a young lady of Lavaur. Michael meets a fairy, who mocks his snooty, condescending attitude and causes misery for him. The story does not end well, since Michael misses his opportunity to meet the young lady he is in love with. What interested me was that Drak is a male fairy - usually, fairies in French fairy tales are pretty much always female. I liked this one - definitely better than the above two! The Twelve Months is a fairy tale somewhat similar to Diamonds and Toads. It is about a girl named Dobrunka, her evil stepmother, and her half-sister Katinka. Dobrunka is assisted by twelve men who are personifications of the months of the year. I liked this one too. I don't think it's really French, though, since the names definitely aren't French. We also have Yvon and Finette , a long fairy tale taking place in Brittany, which I liked as well. There are two Spanish stories as well. One of them, The Story of Coquerico (Not to be confused with Princess Lionette and Prince Coquerico, which I had an earlier blog post on). This story's Coquerico is a rooster - well, half of a rooster. He has one eye, one leg, and one wing. This story is basically the same as The Half-Chick from Andrew Lang's Green Fairy Book. There's also a few Gaelic stories, but I didn't like any of them. (I'm not that big on Irish or Welsh fairy tales. I do like a lot of Scottish fairy tales - Callum Direach is based on a Scottish story I particularly liked.) After that we had a load of German stories. Two of them are not actually German. The Wild Swans is Hans Christian Andersen's story since there's eleven brothers and the sister's name is Eliza. (The Grimms' version, The Six Swans, has only six brothers and the sister is unnamed.) The Golden Crab is Greek - it's basically the same story as the one in Andrew Lang's Yellow Fairy Book. The rest are from the Brothers Grimm. We have Sleeping Beauty, here titled Briar Rose - this version uses the Grimm version, unlike the other two collections I reviewed which use the Perrault version. The renditions were, for the most part, pretty good. The Russian stories weren't that great. The worst of the lot was The Sparrow and the Bush . The repetition in the story was annoying and it felt rather childish. Plus, the line about the "Tartars" slaying the people made me cringe since "Tartar" is a derogatory term for the Tatar people, one of Russia's main minority groups (they're mostly Muslim and they speak a language similar to Turkish) - in times long past they were persecuted due to their language and religious beliefs. Thankfully, none of the other stories had racist content. And last but not least we get to the Indian stories. I wasn't familiar with any of them before I found this, but then again, India is a huge, diverse country, so of course there's thousands of Indian fairy tales. The Grateful Cobra is one of them. It's about two sisters whose parents (a raja and rani) give them a home in the woods with a dog to care for them. One sister is good, while the other one is evil. The good sister marries a young raja, while the bad sister marries his brother. The sisters are assisted by a cobra. The bad sister ends up killing the dog. When the good sister goes to be bitten by the cobra, he instead rewards her. As for the bad sister? He bites her, and she dies. Another one I liked was The Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges . It's about a Brahman who frees a tiger from his cage, but the tiger wants to eat him. The Brahman seeks the advice of six judges. The sixth judge, a jackal, declares that the ungrateful tiger must be shut up in the cage and never left out. Actually, all the Indian stories were pretty good. India's one of my favorite non-European locations in terms of fairy tales. Overall, this was another mixed bag. There's good stories and there's bad stories. It does have quite a few entertaining stories, but for every good one, there's a dud. I also felt like a lot of the stories were ascribed to the wrong countries. Is it worth checking out? I think it is. (Then again, I think almost all fairy tale collections are worth checking out!) TABLE OF CONTENTS; (More recognizable titles are in parentheses) #East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon (East of the Son and West of the Moon) #The Golden Lantern, Golden Goat, and Golden Cloak #Mother Roundabout's Daughter #The Bear and Skrattel #The Golden Bird #The Doll in the Grass (Doll i' the Grass) #The Princess on the Glass Hill #The Ram and the Pig Who Went into the Woods (The Sheep and the Pig who Set Up House) #The Troll's Hammer #The Clever Prince #"Lars, My Lad!" #Twigmuntus, Cowbelliantus, Perchnosius #Master Tobacco #The History of Tom Thumb #Tattercoats #History of Jack the Giant-Killer #Yvon and Finette #The Fair One with Golden Locks (The Story of Pretty Goldilocks) #The Little Good Mouse #The Story of Blanche and Vermilion (The Widow and her Two Daughters) #Prince Desire and Princess Mignonetta (Prince Hyacinth and the Dear Little Princess) #The Yellow Dwarf #Graciosa and Percinet #Drak, the Fairy #Drakesbill and His Friends #Riquet with the Tuft #The White Cat #Prince Cherry (Prince Darling) #The Twelve Months #The Story of Coquerico (The Half-Chick) #The Bird-Cage Maker #The Bee, the Harp, the Mouse and the Bum-Clock #The Long Leather Bag #The Widow's Daughter #Munachar and Manachar #The Wild Swans #The Road to Fortune #The Golden Crab #The Table, the Ass, and the Stick (The Wishing-Table, the Gold-Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack) #The Little Brother and Sister #The Old Griffin (The Griffin) #The Three Feathers #The House in the Wood (The Hut in the Forest) #Rapunzel #The Queen Bee #The Many-Furred Creature (Allerleirauh) #Snow-white and Rose-red #The Frog Prince #The Goose Girl #Briar Rose #The Iron Stove #Rumpel-stilts-ken (Rumpelstiltskin) #Faithful John, the King's Servant (Faithful Johannes) #Spindle, Shuttle, and Needle #The Magic Egg #The Sparrow and the Bush #The Iron Wolf #The Grateful Cobra #The Magic Ring #Tit for Tat #The Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges #Muchie Lal #The Valiant Chatteemaker Category:Blog posts